


Signs of Life

by coolbreeze1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 11:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeze1/pseuds/coolbreeze1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wanders off, looking for some peace and quiet and finding more trouble instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signs of Life

**Author's Note:**

> This is for titan5 who wanted an exhausted John! The exhausted part ended up taking a little bit of a backseat during the story but hopefully enough of it is still there. Written very quickly with no beta, so any mistakes are all mine. Just a quick little one-shot ficlet!

The view at the top of the cliff was stunning—rocky hills and trees shrouded in a veil of morning fog, the rising sun setting the edge of the world on fire. In the distance, he saw a dip in the land and knew it was a river cutting through untouched wilderness. Beyond that, out of sight, lay the ocean. John drank deeply from his water bottle then turned toward the light and closed his eyes, filling his lungs with the cool, damp air.

Then he fell off the edge.

The serene, quiet beauty of nature and dawn and peace shattered in an instant. The rocks, wet with morning dew, gave his boots no traction. He pin-wheeled his arms as his weight shifted, crying out as he spun. He managed to twist enough to grab the edge of the cliff as it slid past, but his momentum was too fast. His forearms and hands scraped against the rocks, and suddenly he was free.

The cliff was vertical at the top, but it began to incline about five feet below where he’d been standing. His feet hit the ground, slamming his body into the rocks, but it did little to slow him down. Breath whooshed out of his lungs as he smacked into the rocks, but before he could take another breath, his body slipped down the incline and over a boulder.

He finally worked in enough air to let out a wailing scream as his shirt was torn and the rough rocks scraped against the tender skin of his stomach and chest. Almost before he realized what was happening, he was free-falling again.

 _This wasn’t in the plans,_ he thought, and then he slammed up against a ledge of rock.

He lay there, breathing hard and feeling raw nerves on his opened skin screech in agony against the cool, fresh air. He wanted to curl up against the pain, but no amount of mental coaxing could get his body to move at all. He closed his eyes, riding the wave of adrenaline still pumping through him.

Warm liquid dripped down his arms, and he lifted them with a grimace. His hands were shaking, and his palms and forearms were covered in blood. The scrapes at least weren’t deep. Neither were the ones on his chest and stomach. He flexed his feet and felt the scrapes on his knees where rocks had grated through his pants. He lifted his head enough to look at his shredded t-shirt and skin rubbed raw underneath, then dropped it with a groan. The pain was sharp and burning, reminding him of Kolya’s Wraith, its hand slamming into his chest—

“No,” he called out, his voice hoarse. The scrapes hurt, but nothing like the Wraith feeding had. A week after escaping Kolya’s clutches, the intensity of that pain was still fresh in his mind.

It had been Rodney’s idea of all people—this whole camping on the mainland thing. John had given him a hard time, telling him he wasn’t exactly the camping type, but secretly he’d been relieved and grateful beyond words for the suggestion. People were still staring at him in the hallways, still whispering like he couldn’t see or hear them, still shocked that the man who’d been fed on by a Wraith was young and healthy and walking amongst them. He’d needed a few days to relax and get away from everyone and everything.

The sun rose a little higher, breaking free of the fog. Soon, the heat of the day would dry out the air’s moisture. John and Rodney had found a nice little clearing near a river and spent most of the day before trying to fish. They’d caught nothing, but Rodney was uncharacteristically optimistic that they’d have more success today. They’d hiked around afterward, wearing themselves out, then thrown their sleeping bags into the back of the jumper for the night.

The nightmares had come. John had expected them—they’d plagued him almost every night since he’d escaped Kolya’s clutches—but he’d hoped he’d worked himself into enough of a state of exhaustion to sleep through them. He hadn’t screamed—Rodney’s sound slumber was evidence of that—but he’d woken up before dawn and laid there, unable to fall back to sleep. He’d scrawled a note to Rodney then set out on a short hike, searching for a high point to watch the sunrise.

“Crap,” he muttered. He’d found his high point and his sunrise, but Rodney wouldn’t be awake for a while. John hadn’t brought a radio either, thinking he would only be gone for an hour or so.

He opened his eyes, taking stock of his body. Beyond the scrapes, he could feel bruises already forming, but nothing that signaled any serious injury like a broken bone. He should be grateful for that. He rolled his head to the side, seeing a cliff wall. When he looked the other way, he saw he was lying on a ledge about five feet wide. The boulder he’d slid off was a good ten feet above him.

Very carefully, he eased himself up and slid his butt to the wall. His ragged skin howled in protest at the movement. He’d been lucky—very lucky. If he’d missed that ledge, he’d be a pile of broken bones who knew how many feet down, left for the animals and Mother Nature to consume. He shook his head at the morbid thought.

He was alive. He was hurting, but in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing more than scrapes and bruises. He’d survived much worse.

“Yeah,” he huffed at the thought. “Last week.”

The image of the Wraith shot through his mind again, but he pushed it away. It was over. He was free of Kolya, free from the Wraith’s feedings. Rodney was close by, maybe still sleeping, but he’d be up soon and he wasn’t a camper. He didn’t do the outdoors thing, which meant it wouldn’t take long before he started getting nervous and looking for John.

With that thought in mind, John eased himself up to his feet. The ledge felt stable enough, but the sooner he could get off it, the better. He scanned the rock cliff, scouting out a climbing path. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he reached out for the first handhold. The climb back up to the boulder was lost in an agonizing haze. The cuts had started to clot, but John’s stretching and climbing had torn them open again. Parts of his t-shirt and pants had stuck to the drying blood, but it ripped free as he moved. At the top of the boulder, he collapsed in a heap, panting like he’d run a marathon, but this ledge was much narrower.

He could see exactly where his feet had hit the part of the cliff that had jutted out, and he grimaced at the marks on the boulder where his body had scraped over the side. Before he could talk himself out of it, he dug into the slope and climbed up, grabbing the final top edge and heaving himself up to stable ground with a shout.

He rolled, getting as far away from the precipice as possible, then curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his throbbing body. Sweat slicked his skin, and fresh blood was oozing down his hands and arms, covering his stomach and chest. Maybe he should just lay there and wait for help to come.

Except that Rodney had no idea what direction he’d gone in, and did John, the military commander of Atlantis, really want to be discovered lying in a shivering, whimpering ball? People were already freaked out enough about his experience with the Wraith. They needed a strong leader, needed to know that no matter what happened, he could stand up to it, deal with the pain and horror of it all. Keep fighting.

He needed to know it.

He rolled to his knees, moaning. There was no one to hear his cries of pain, but he fought to control them anyway. This pain was manageable. All he had to do was stumble back down the path until he hit camp, and then he could let Rodney panic, shuttle him back to Atlantis and proper medical care. Or at least double strength Tylenol.

The blood was drying again, and he peeled his shirt off before it had a chance to dry to his skin. It was ruined anyway. He studied the front of it, noting the holes and tears. No way could that shirt be salvaged. A second later, he pushed himself to his feet.

Swaying, he grabbed a nearby tree and bent forward. Had he hit his head? He didn’t remember that, but given how far he’d fallen, he wouldn’t be surprised. He ran his fingertips through his hair but felt no swelling knots. His face was aching, however, and he was surprised when his fingers came away bloody. He’d scraped up his cheek and forehead somewhere along the way.

“Water,” he mumbled. He cast around looking for his water bottle then remembered he’d been holding it right before he fell. He glanced at the cliff’s edge but saw nothing.

No water, no radio. The only thing left to do was head back to the camp, even if he had to crawl on mangled hands and knees to get there.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

John had not walked this far. He was sure of it. He stumbled along the path in the woods wondering if he’d gone the wrong way, but there’d been only one path. He blinked, stumbling to a halt and leaning against a tree. Sweat slicked across his skin, catching particles of dust and dirt floating in the hair. His hair was wet too, and a headache was hammering through his temples.

He realized his jaw was clenched tight and he forced the muscles to relax. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his fingers in circles against his forehead. He was on the right path, but he’d walked faster on the way to the cliff. As long as he stayed straight and continued downhill, he’d run into the jumper. He had to be close.

“God, how embarrassing is this?” he muttered. He’d survived a Wraith feeding and then almost killed himself with a little morning walk. He glanced down at himself, shaking his head at the raw scrapes all over his torso. In between the red patches, he could see skin beginning to swell and mottle with bruising.

He closed his eyes at the sight and dropped his head, but a screeching bird somewhere in the trees above him jerked him out of his lethargy. He pushed away from the tree and began moving again. Either the pain was diminishing or he had grown used to it, but after another twenty minutes, it was barely making a blip on his radar.

Fatigue overcame the cuts and scrapes, vying for his attention. After the short but desperate climb up the side of the cliff, his legs and arms were shaking in exhaustion. He weaved down the path, stumbling over every root and rock and bush.

“Keep going, John. Keep going. They’ll come for you. Don’t sit down. Don’t stop.”

He kept up the litany of encouragement, knowing he sounded and looked like a crazed Wildman, but he didn’t care. The path was evening out, and the idea that he was close gave him enough of a burst of energy to push forward.

He heard the river, then saw the front of the jumper, then smelled coffee. Rodney.

“McKay?”

“There you are,” came the instant reply. “Coffee’s still hot, but if you don’t get some soon, I’m going to drink all of it.”

The world was swaying around him, the forest and clearing growing dim then light again as he moved. He reached out, using the side of the jumper as a guide, and walked toward Rodney’s voice.

“Where’d you go anyway? I just about freaked until I found your note.”

John rounded the jumper, seeing Rodney bent over the fire and pouring coffee from a kettle into a mug. The moment froze in his mind—Rodney glancing up, his face going pale, the coffee from both the mug and the kettle spilling into the fire and causing the flames to hiss and crackle.

“Holy crap!”

John pushed away from the jumper, staggering forward another few steps before shaking legs began to fold beneath him. Rodney jumped up, catching John by the armpits and easing him to a sitting position on the ground.

“Crap, crap, crap, crap…”

John must have zoned out for a minute. He was still sitting on the ground, but Rodney was somewhere behind him in the jumper, ripping it to shreds from the sound of things. A sharp pain fired through his chest, reminding him of the anguish of the feeding. He lifted a hand to the faint feeding mark, grimacing at the open, dirty scrapes on his palm.

Rodney darted back, holding the first aid kit but looking utterly lost. “I don’t think we have enough bandages for this.”

“Just…take me home…” John whispered. His head was bobbing as he fought to stay upright.

Rodney stepped away, throwing the first aid kit back into the jumper, then knelt next to John, helping him up without aggravating any of the scrapes or bruises. John groaned anyway. His whole body was shaking now, between the adrenaline rush of the fall, the ascent up the cliff, and the long walk back to the campsite.

Through the haze of pain and fatigue, John felt Rodney’s grip tighten, holding him up and leading him to the back of the jumper. He was alive—no better proof of that than the pain and weariness coursing through him. He also wasn’t alone. His team—or at least one member of it—was there for him, getting him home to safety.

Rodney pushed John onto the bench, and John stretched out carefully. “Thanks, buddy,” he said, his eyes closing of their own accord. He felt a warm hand squeeze his shoulder, heard the back hatch shut with a solid thump, and then they were off the ground and zooming back to Atlantis.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

“Knock, knock,” Rodney called out as the door to John’s quarters slid open.

John looked up from his magazine and smiled, waving his teammate in. “Hey, what’s up?”

“You look remarkably…better than before.”

“Amazing what a good night’s sleep and some prescription strength Tylenol will do for you.”

“Not to mention half the gauze in the infirmary,” Rodney added. John’s arms, from fingers to elbows, were wrapped in crisp, white bandages. “You’re really okay?”

John tossed his magazine to the side and swung his feet off the edge of the bed. More bandages covered his chest, stomach, and knees, hidden beneath his clothing, and they pulled as he moved. “A little stiff and sore, but nothing that won’t heal within a few weeks. Looks worse than it feels.”

“Hmmm,” Rodney answered, scrunching up his face. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“I can’t complain too much,” John answered. “I’m alive.”

“That you are. I was heading toward the mess hall and thought I’d swing by here on my way. Hungry?”

John nodded. “I could eat.” He stood slowly as muted pain flared under the fog of painkillers for a few brief seconds. He paused, letting the throb die down, then slipped his feet into his running shoes. He didn’t bother tying them up. He and Rodney ambled down the hallway, moving slowly, but there was no rush. John was off duty for a couple of days still.

“You know, we didn’t really get much of a camping trip. We could go back later, when you’re feeling up to it?”

Rodney’s question was tentative but heartfelt. John grinned, slapping him on the back. “You just want to prove you can catch a fish in that river.”

“I can catch a fish. I had it all figured out before you went wandering off a cliff and ruined our trip. I am smarter than that fish, and I _will_ eat it for dinner.”

John laughed, bracing an arm against his abused body but not caring that it hurt. Pain was nothing. This—his home, his friends, his family—this was everything.

END  



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